"Really," said Lord Markham, "this is very irregular. I have never before been privy to a duel where one of the combatants fought in a chair. And I am not sure that I can undertake the responsibility of concluding arrangements in such circumstances."
"Blasted nonsense!" said Sir Jasper with all his former urbanity of demeanour. He flung the reins to his man as he spoke, and clambered down from the curricle. Stafford had gone before him to the gate and was now stamping from one foot to another in exquisite enjoyment of the situation.
"(Ha, ha, ha!) Hello! Morning, Colonel, sorry to see you this way! (Ha, ha!) Have you brought another bath-chair for our man? Oh come, yes. 'Twon't be fair if he do not sit in a bath-chair too! Say, Foulks, you wheel one chair, I'll wheel the other, and we will run them one at the other and let them fire as soon as they please. Gad, what a joke!"
Colonel Villiers turned upon his volatile friend a countenance the colour of which presented some resemblance to a well-defined bruise on the third day; it was yellow and green with pain where it was not purple with fury.
"Mr. Stafford, sir, these jokes, sir, are vastly out of place. (Curse this foot!) Mr. Foulks, have the kindness to explain.... Major Topham, explain to these gentlemen that I have come out to fight, sir, and that fight I will, by the living jingo!" He struck the arm of the chair in his fury, gave his suffering foot a nasty jar and burst into a howl of rage and agony.
"Stap me," said Stafford, "I'd as soon fight an old bear! Whisper, Foulks, is he going to shoot in his cage—beg pardon, I mean his chair?"
"Such is his intention," said Mr. Foulks, grinning nervously as he spoke, and showing the set of fine Bond Street ivory already referred to by Mr. Stafford. "But it strikes me it is somewhat irregular."
"Somewhat irregular?" ejaculated Lord Markham; "it is altogether irregular. I decline to have anything to say to it."
Sir Jasper remained standing, gloomily looking at the ground and driving his gold-headed malacca into the soft mud as if all his attention were directed to the making of a row of little tunnels.
"What is the difficulty, what is the difficulty?" bellowed Colonel Villiers. "You wheel me into position, and you mark the paces, eight paces, Foulks, not a foot more, and you give me my pistol. What is the difficulty—hang me, hang you all, I say! What is the difficulty?"